Zeroing in on the Soul
by theunknownvoice
Summary: after five years of limited contact the former rangers must deal with the fact that the morphing grid has gone haywire.  For Jason that means stepping up as the leader once again.  First in the Connected Grid series.


Zeroing in on the Soul

By: theunknownvoice

Prologue: In the Beginning there was Five

Disclaimer: I don't own PR.

A/N: Welcome to Connected to Grid! Connected Grid is a 10 story project with Zeroing in on the Soul being the first chapter. It will follow all the teams right up to RPM. Now not every team is getting a story but there will at least be cameos from everyone. This story takes place after Forever Red.

In the beginning it was only the five of them. Five points of light on a bleak existence that moved closer to each other than anyone thought possible.

They were the five, the chosen, the ones who would stand through the impossible. They were all stereotypes in the beginning. Jason was the jock, Billy the nerd, Kim the airhead, Trini the smart girl, and Zack popular kid. They were a close knit group from the beginning, five friends who could trust each other with their lives. They changed though. They all became better people. It wasn't overnight and it wasn't spontaneously. The changes were gradual.

It was when Tommy came that things really changed. From dealing with Tommy they learned forgiveness. They learned the true evil of the war they fought. Rita was capable of anything and before they had dismissed her as some type of incompetent buffon. Tommy was a strike at them personally. He knew them. So while Kim cried from a broken heart and Jason mourned the friend he had just found, the truth about they were sunk in.

This was war and five points of light were just as insignificant as everyone else. Years passed and eventually not even Tommy was a ranger. They had handed their morphers over to the Turbo rangers and Jason had felt the power drained from him. But being a ranger wasn't something you forgot. It was engraved in you.

Jason never forgot being a ranger. He didn't forget it when his life was hell or when his parents final signed divorce papers. It didn't fade into the back of his mind. Every memory had was colored in his color. Everything was shown to him in red.

He was waiting for it. It was only a matter of time now that the others had left.

"What the hell is a matter with you? How long have you been working with Andros and why didn't you tell me?"

There it was.

"Listen bro—"

"No, you listen," Jason said his eyes hardening. "I didn't leave the team by choice. Not the second time anyway. I've never left it behind."

"Jase, you have to understand," Tommy said.

The ground was slipping out from under him. How could he know that Jason felt like he did about the rangers? They barely spoke to each other anymore. He only knew what was going on with Jason through the loose network the former rangers had established.

Tommy Oliver ran his fingers through his short hair. It wasn't everyday you saw your best friend for the first time in three years. It wasn't that they weren't friends. No, Jason had made a life wandering around doing odd jobs. In reality, he was one of the network of former rangers who was maintaining close tabs on the morphing grid. New teams popped up every year or so. It was Jason who found out their identities and talked to their mentors. Jason was the one who arranged for the groups to be brought into the network.

Tommy hadn't known that until after the mission. The other red rangers except for Cole had pointedly asked Jason what this all meant. They deferred to him as the senior red ranger.

"_You didn't know about this did you?" Eric Myers asked Jason._

_Jason barely glanced at his second. Years ago when they had formed the Network, Jason had rotated through seconds. Zack had done it for the first two years. Adam had tried but he was more tactile. Rocky was merely happy to serve as Jason's back-up when necessary. Until last year when Jason had meant Eric and Wes, he had assumed himself to be doomed to be without a second. Eric, however, had the authority and the limited outside commitments necessary. He and Wes had used the Silver Guardians a few times to keep ranger business guarded._

"_Tommy doesn't involve himself with the network."_

"_Yet he thinks he can run the show. You should've told him that there's a reason for the network. We keep track of this kind of thing."_

"_Like he'd get that Eric. He doesn't even do the message boards. He doesn't know that I know any of you others."_

_Eric stared at him. Jason had frequently went out with Eric and Wes. They often found themselves in the bizarrest of situations together including the time Wes had been sitting in Eric's jeep perilously hanging off a cliff. Eric received all the intel Jason did. It wasn't so much as a second but a partner._

"_You going to tell him?"_

_Jason's eyes darkened. "There's no point. Tommy needs to be the hero. Let him."_

It was Leo who had pointedly deferred to Jason blowing the truth out into the open.

"_I almost didn't come until I found out the network was involved."_

_Tommy stared at the Red Galatic Ranger. "The Network?"_

"_Yeah, normally these things have to be clered through the Network. I know I'm not an earth ranger but I still have ties here. The colony is still realizing some terran support. Besides if the Alliance of Evil ever came to power again Mirinoi would be a sitting duck."_

_Tommy sipped his coffee. "I didn't go through the Network."_

_Leo dripped his cup spilling his orange juice all over the table. "I only assumed because Jason is here."_

"_What does that have to do with anything?"_

_Leo stared at him incrediously. "I thought you two were as close as brothers."_

"_We are."_

"_Well I'm damn sure Mike would tell me if he was the head of the Network. So why hasn't Jason told you?"_

Tommy had kept himself out of the network. In fact he only ever connected one other ranger and Adam was known for keeping secrets. Sometimes Tommy forgot that fact though Adam not Rocky had been his second.

"I didn't know that the network was keeping tabs," Tommy said defensively.

Jason gave him that hollow look. "You'd know if you spoke to anyone. You don't even call Kat."

"After what happened with Kim, I didn't want to risk a long distance relationship with Katherine."

The look on Jason's face made it obvious. Tommy wanted to scream out denials. He wasn't a coward but the truth is that he didn't love Kat like he had loved Kim. Kim at that one moment in time had meant everything to him. She was his first love. But he had learned when he went to get his doctorate that first loves fade.

"Whatever, you're just lucky that Rocky was unavailable for this mission. He wasn't too happy that you didn't invite him," Jason said.

"He wasn't in a command position."

"No but he's a red. And everyone on this mission was a red. And I know for a fact that Eric was never in a command position. He's only ever been a secondary and that's with the Network not his own team."

Tommy can't hide the heat in his gaze. A long time ago he would've been the one to be Jason's second. It's another reminder that they are no longer the friends they once were.

"I didn't think Rocko wanted to reinjure his back. I know he's running a restaurant now and teaches classes on the side."

"You could've asked me. It wouldn't have killed you."

The two former rangers turned to see Rocky DeSantos standing right behind them. The former red and blue ranger, looked slightly exhausted. It been five years since Tommy had seen Rocky. Five years since most of the team had reunited. He reasoned it that their lives had taken different paths and only the memories of being rangers kept them connected at all. With the internet and the alien technology they had acquired over the years, face to face interaction was unnecessary even in the network.

"Rocky, look I—"

"Don't worry about it. Someone needed to man the network with Jason and Eric up on the moon with you. I was happy to do it."

"How'd you like command?" Jason asks. "I take it you didn't come out here for old times."

The old ruin of the Command Center is a place where none of them goes. It is nothing but a smoked out old shell and a reminder that Zordon is dead. Every ranger in the universe had felt his passing as the power inside of them fluctuated. They had known then that their era had ended. It was then that they could from across the country and across the galaxy to mourn at this site.

Jason could still remember her small frame huddled by the runs. He had come here alone not even allowing Zack and Trini to accompany him.

_It hurt. He couldn't describe to an outsider in detail. It was as if his own father was dead or a part of his soul had been ripped out for the masses to consume. He knew that Trini had been here._

_He could see the yellow candle placed were Zordon's energy tube had been. The sound of sobbing made him tense. His legs moved of their own violation as he pulled to him._

"_I didn't know you'd be here, Jase," she whispers._

_Her lips are chapped and her brown eyes are clouded with tears. He can tell that she's been her for a while. Her knees are scraped up from the climb. She's wobbly on her feet and the grief that permanents the air has found refugee in her._

"_I didn't have anywhere else to go. I couldn't just stay where I was and mourn. I knew I had to come here."_

_She nods and offers him a sad smile. "We're the originals. This is where we belong."_

Standing there now with the two other former reds mad him think more of her. He hadn't seen her in over a year and by now he was aching for her presence.

"No, it's the reading we've been getting. Billy tried to isolate them and it led him back here. Since I was closest in Stone Canyon, I figured I'd do the field work for him. Then I'd send him the data," Rocky said pulling Jason back to the present.

It was Tommy who felt it first. Out of all of them, his powers had been with him the longest. A flash of energy ran through him. He could feel his body functions slowly and lightning coursed through his veins.

Jason too fell to his knees. His body coursing with pain as he felt himself being ripped in two. The power coin in his hand burned. Images of brown eyes circled in his head. God let him make it through his. Let him see her again.

Rocky felt the pain but as that his powers were inactive it was minor. That didn't mean that it didn't hurt like hell. His eyes glazed over the scanner he had been carrying. Energy fluctuated. It was as if a storm was brewing around them.

The three former red rangers stared at each other in horror only one thing could do this: the grid.

To be continued…


End file.
